Investigators at the University of Pittsburgh propose a new training program for predoctoral students in HIV/AIDS research. Pitt AIDS Research Training (PART) program will be administered under the leadership of the Program Director, Dr. Phalguni Gupta, with the help of a steering committee composed of senior and junior training faculty. The predoctoral trainees will be recruited to the PART program from two graduate programs at the Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (IDM) of the Graduate School of Public Health and Molecular Virology and Microbiology (MVM) of the School of Medicine, respectively. Training faculty will come from four Departments that are heavily involved in HIV/AIDS research and training at the University of Pittsburgh. Predoctoral students trained under this program will develop an in depth and specialized understanding of HIV-1 related basic and clinical issues, which sets it apart from the other T32 programs at the University of Pittsburgh. From the large pool of eligible students, PART trainees will be selected based on their performances in course work and laboratory rotations and their successful passing of the Preliminary/Comprehensive examination. Faculty mentors have been selected on strict criteria based on their past record of student training, grant funding, teaching graduate courses and service on student advisory/examination committees. Special efforts will be made to recruit underrepresented minorities in collaboration with minority recruitment officers at the University of Pittsburgh. The predoctoral students will develop independent research projects in HIV/AIDS with their PART faculty preceptors who represent major basic research disciplines in HIV/AIDS research. The students will be trained in basic, clinical and behavioral aspects of HIV/AIDS research through collaborative projects and various joint meetings and seminars among the PART faculty and staff. This training program will produce next generation of investigators with multidisciplinary training in high quality, cutting edge HIV/AIDS research, which is essential to improve our ability to combat the AIDS epidemic. [unreadable] [unreadable]